Regulate Pot? Uruguay’s been there, with whisky

In this Aug. 21, 2013 photo, a man sits with a drink in hand at a downtown bar in Montevideo, Uruguay. The government of Uruguay makes Scotch whisky. It also makes and sells rum, vodka and cognac, and has done so for nearly a century. President Jose Mujica says Uruguays long experience at the center of the nations liquor business makes it more than capable of dominating another addictive substance: marijuana. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)

In this Aug. 21, 2013 photo, bottles of liquor line a bar shelf in downtown Montevideo, Uruguay. The government of Uruguay makes Scotch whisky. It also makes and sells rum, vodka and cognac, and has done so for nearly a century. President Jose Mujica says Uruguays long experience at the center of the nations liquor business makes it more than capable of dominating another addictive substance: marijuana. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)

FILE - In this Aug. 27, 2013 file photo, Uruguay's President Jose Mujica speaks during the inauguration of a new oil refinery in Montevideo, Uruguay. Mujica says Uruguays long experience at the center of the nations liquor business makes it more than capable of dominating another addictive substance: marijuana. The government says its goal is to lower marijuana consumption in Uruguay by strictly regulating a legal market for it and punishing those who grow, sell or use it illegally. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico, File)

This Aug. 22, 2013 photo shows part of an Ancap plant where alcohol is distilled in Montevideo, Uruguay. Inspired by the late President Jose Batlle y Ordonez, Uruguays congress created in the 1930's Ancap, a state fuel and liquor monopoly that still refines imported oil and distills liquor at side-by-side plants in Montevideo. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)

In this Aug. 22, 2013 photo, an employee inspects a bottle of Mac Pay whisky on a production line at the Ancap plant where Mac Pay is bottled in Montevideo, Uruguay. Inspired by the late President Jose Batlle y Ordonez, Uruguays congress created in the 1930's Ancap, a state fuel and liquor monopoly that still refines imported oil and distills liquor at side-by-side plants in Montevideo. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)

In this July 31, 2013 photo, President of Uruguay's National Drug Control Agency, Julio Calzada, attends a debate for a proposed bill to legalize marijuana and regulate production and distribution, in the House of Representatives, in Montevideo, Uruguay. The government says its goal is to lower marijuana consumption in Uruguay by strictly regulating a legal market for it and punishing those who grow, sell or use it illegally. Controlling alcohol use will help, said Calzada. His agency considers alcohol to be a gateway substance for marijuana, so another bill before Congress would limit beer, wine and liquor advertising, and ban nighttime sales in places other than bars and restaurants. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)

In this Aug. 26, 2013 photo, ruling party Sen. Lucia Topolansky speaks during an interview in her office in Montevideo, Uruguay. Final Senate approval of Uruguays marijuana law is expected by late September, and the government plans to license growers, sellers and users as quickly as possible thereafter to protect them from criminal drug traffickers, said Topolansky, who is also Uruguays first lady. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico)

In this Nov. 15, 2012 file photo, young man rides a bicycle past a graffiti that reads in Spanish; "Legal pot," in Montevideo, Uruguay. Final Senate approval of Uruguays marijuana law is expected by late September. The law specifically creates a legal marijuana monopoly, making the government alone responsible for importing, producing, obtaining, storing, commercializing, and distributing a drug still considered illegal around the world. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico, File)

FILE - In this July 31, 2013 file photo, a man smokes a marijuana joint outside Congress where lawmakers debate a bill to legalize marijuana and regulate production and distribution in Montevideo, Uruguay. Final Senate approval of Uruguays marijuana law is expected by late September, and the government plans to license growers, sellers and users as quickly as possible thereafter to protect them from criminal drug traffickers. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico, File)

The government of Uruguay makes Scotch whisky. It also makes and sells rum, vodka and cognac, and has done so for nearly a century. Many people consider this sideline of the state to be an historical accident – a wasteful and even eccentric contradiction.

But President Jose Mujica says Uruguay’s long experience at the center of the nation’s liquor business makes it more than capable of dominating another substance: marijuana.

Final Senate approval of Uruguay’s marijuana law is expected by late September, and the government plans to license growers, sellers and users as quickly as possible thereafter to protect them from criminal drug traffickers, ruling party Sen. Lucia Topolansky, who is also Uruguay’s first lady, told the Associated Press.

The law specifically creates a legal marijuana monopoly, making the government alone responsible for importing, producing, obtaining, storing, commercializing and distributing a drug still considered illegal across the world.

A state entity will license producers and control marijuana’s distribution and sale through the same neighborhood pharmacies that sell prescription medicines and toothpaste. Purchases by licensed users will be limited to 40 grams a month. Pot-growing cooperatives will be encouraged, using government-approved seeds, and people registered with the state will be able to grow up to six plants at home for personal use, as long as they harvest no more than 17 ounces a year.

The project passed the House by just one vote, and while the ruling Broad Front coalition has an easier majority in the Senate, Mujica has been campaigning actively for its passage, reminding Uruguayans that their government has been controlling the market for addictive substances ever since the beginning of the 20th century, when President Jose Batlle y Ordonez wanted the state to monopolize alcohol production.

“Don Jose Batlle y Ordonez had courage,” Mujica said in one of his folksy nationwide radio talks. “The state grabbed it and made a monopoly of alcohol, because it couldn’t stop the booze, and he said, ‘At least don’t poison the people – the booze should be good.’ ”

Batlle y Ordonez was ahead of his time in promoting social change in Latin America, from the separation of church and state to the eight-hour workday and maternity leave. And he had several goals for alcohol: He wanted the whisky to generate government revenue and guarantee a profit stream for farmers, funding the production of a national fuel so Uruguay’s cars and trucks wouldn’t need imported gasoline.

Uruguay wasn’t alone in that fight: In 1925, Henry Ford was promoting alcohol as the fuel of the future, and it was being blended with gasoline from France to the Philippines. But like many other countries, Uruguay never achieved this energy independence. Oil companies won an intense global campaign to focus on fossil fuels, a trend that held until Brazil started using alcohol blends in the 1980s.

Topolansky agrees that whisky-making is a good model for the marijuana project.

“Back then, people were making wood alcohol and other very toxic blends. So the government said ‘the people are going to keep drinking, but we have to offer a quality product that doesn’t carry dangerous side-effects.’ And the state took over production,” Topolansky explained.

She said they need to do the same with marijuana, which has long been legal to use but not to sell in Uruguay – a situation she said puts people at the mercy of dangerous criminals. “Marijuana consumers go to dealers where they sell it mixed with more addictive substances, or they sell them something else. It’s a clandestine world where we can’t enter. The state needs to regulate this market, like it did before with alcohol,” she said.

The government says its goal is to lower marijuana consumption in Uruguay by strictly regulating a legal market for it and punishing those who grow, sell or use it illegally.

Controlling alcohol use will help, said Uruguay’s drug czar, Julio Calzada. His agency considers alcohol to be a gateway substance for marijuana, so another bill before Congress would limit beer, wine and liquor advertising, and ban nighttime sales in places other than bars and restaurants. Calzada told the AP that many students in Uruguay drink dangerous quantities of alcohol, and that the numbers are getting worse. But Calzada doesn’t blame the state liquor factory for these behavioral problems. On the contrary: he says it deserves credit for eliminating dangerous brews.

“The state was able to drive out those making wood alcohol and poisoning the people, just as Mujica said. Today we have to take action with marijuana because those who buy it don’t know what they’re buying, just the same as what happened with people buying alcohol in 1930.”